Chapter 99: After the boundary stone

Yes, it’s time to go. After sleeping under the boundary stone all night, I felt a sense of peace and quietness throughout my body and heart. When Jueyuan said this, it was as if he was telling me it was time to go to work.

Compared to me, the others were a little nervous, but it was much better than yesterday. After a simple wash and a snack, we set off.

The boundary pillar is only 5 meters thick at its thickest, and according to the standard pace of an adult man, it is only five steps, or at most six or seven steps. However, these five meters are like a clear dividing line. After we cross these five meters, the world changes.

When we looked from the boundary stone to this side, all we could see was a thick, rolling fog, but after we had completely crossed the boundary stone, there was no more fog that we couldn’t see through.

I can’t describe the scenery. The purple-red sky was low and heavy, and the hillside on this side no longer had the winding path, but was covered with large patches of wildflowers.

The wildflowers were a pale color, but at the tip of the petals there was a tragic red, irregular, like a drop of blood on a white canvas, beautiful and cruel.

Below the hillside, there was a place shrouded in mist. According to my knowledge, it should be a lake, but I couldn’t see clearly.

“It’s beautiful here, as if it best explains the cruel beauty of death. The combination of these colors is cruel. Even the best painter in the world cannot use the most extreme and gorgeous colors to show a world of death, but nature can do it, the world and heaven can do it.” The one speaking was Chengqing, who rarely spoke so much. But I knew that the taciturn Chengqing had a deep understanding of painting, whether it was Chinese or Western painting. The scenery in front of him shocked him.

This kind of beauty is too disturbing, and from the bottom of my heart, I feel a sense of unreality and instability. Looking back, I found that the boundary stone was still behind us, and from the bottom of my heart, I felt a sense of security, as if in the world, that touch of gray with green marks was the most steadfast force, dissolving the impact of these extreme colors on us.

“Let’s go,” I said quietly. The wind blew my hair around, and in the flower sea in front of me, I saw two roads leading in different directions hidden in the flowers.

Which way should I go? I didn’t know anything about this place.

Jueyuan said behind me, “The north is new and the south is old. Since you want to go to the new city, take the path that goes north.”

I nodded and walked in front of everyone. The wind carried a strange aroma, like the most exotic cocktail, with a dreamy sweetness mixed with the strongest smell of blood, intoxicating everyone.

Unfortunately, none of the people present were people of strong will. Although this aroma was full of a stimulating and contradictory beauty, we no longer cared at this time.

Jueyuan commented in a strange way, “The flowers here are not parasitic to any spiritual body, but for people with weak minds, smelling this kind of flower fragrance for a long time is no different from taking drugs.

Really? But I was very quiet, with my mouth tightly pursed, not caring at all about this so-called fragrance. The boundary stone had given me such a strange feeling, a feeling of being connected to it from the core of my being. My thoughts were always on that boundary stone, and I really had no mind to care about these things.

I even had the thought in my mind that those who have felt the boundary stone and have been baptized by it will no longer be afraid of this fragrance, even if it makes people sink into depravity and addiction, or even if this fragrance contains a deep-seated despair.

When I came, it was an uphill road, but when I left, it was a downhill road. As the distance closed, the wind blew, and I was finally able to see the distant scene clearly.

It was still a purple-red sky, low and pressing down on the sky, and where the fog was churning, it was the calm lake surface, which was reflected in the purple-red sky and also presented a hazy purple-red color.

At first, I couldn’t see clearly from a distance, but when I got closer, I realized that what was so quietly resting on the lake surface, motionless, were actually boats, big and small, decaying and new, scattered all over the lake surface, which was somewhat disheartening to look at.

“Are the boats that have been in trouble here for hundreds of years all here?” The one who spoke was Chengxin, who was walking behind me and also experiencing the same excitement, the shock of smell and sight, the sweet fragrance and the impact of the death scene.

“The lake water here doesn’t seem to flow at all, and these boats are motionless! Flowing water is never scary, but it’s this stagnant water that sinks anything.” I don’t know when Yueyue came up alongside me again, and she suddenly said something like this, which made my heart sink a little more.

The legendary river of the dead, difficult for birds to cross, is it really a raging storm, or is it just as lifeless as this? My heart involuntarily associated it with the legend. Perhaps the ferryman there knows if there is another ferryman here?

Xiao Chengqian was more realistic. He could see most of the lake, but there were still two places shrouded in mist. He said, “We haven’t seen the city yet. We don’t have a boat anymore. Do we have to swim in the corpse of this boat?”

The corpse of the boat naturally refers to the wreckage of the old or new boat floating on the lake, but we don’t think it’s humorous at all. On the contrary, it adds a little more weight to our hearts.

Chengxin naturally looked at Jueyuan, who shook his head and said he didn’t know either. He might know the rules of the boundary stone, but the area behind the boundary stone was off-limits. How could he know what to do behind it? After all, his predecessor didn’t explain anything, and it was even more mysterious.

But I had an indescribable feeling in my heart at this time, that is, if we keep going, we will know the way. If we don’t know for the time being, just wait, there must be a way.

Thinking this way, I quickened my pace and headed downwards. I turned to the person behind me and said, “Let’s go. We shouldn’t be trapped here.”

As I said this, I saw the boundary stone again. At this time, its figure was still clearly standing on the top of the island, and I felt inexplicably at ease.

The road to the top is not far, and the road down will naturally not be too far. After about ten minutes, we arrived at the end of this hill. At the end, there was no beach, but hard rocks. The strange flowers spread all the way to the lake, and occasionally the purple-red lake water splashed up, and the flowers trembled slightly.

It wasn’t completely stagnant, but apart from the water on the shore, the water in the lake was really completely still, not even a ripple, making people feel extremely depressed.

The nearest wreckage was less than ten meters away. It was just an ordinary fishing boat, so rotten that it barely floated on the water. There were two skeletons on the boat, one lying on the bow and the other sitting in the cabin, looking up with a look of horror.

I turned my head and didn’t want to think about it. In this environment, what kind of despair would it be before death? Or maybe they had already died when their boat drifted here, but under the boundary stone, I hope they can get a rest, just like the kind of grass that Jueyuan told Huigen about, from twisted and hideous to peaceful and tranquil, and finally get transcendence…

“Chengyi, we’re here, but there isn’t even a single bird here. What do you think we should do?” Xiao Chengqian deliberately avoided looking at the boat and suddenly changed the subject.

I sat down, lit a cigarette, and said to Xiao Chengqian, “Wait! Or swim. You choose.”

Xiao Chengqian was a little helpless, took off his jacket and said to me, “Buddy, don’t provoke me, really, don’t provoke me, ah!” His temper is really very impatient.

But he didn’t expect Jueyuan to run a few steps away, pick up Xiao Chengqian’s jacket, and say, “Don’t throw it away. It’s handmade. What a waste.” Then, he suddenly looked at Xiao Chengqian and said, “Teacher, let me use an analogy. If I ask Dingyuan to sew a piece of clothing for me, does that count as handmade?

Xiao Chengqian was amused by Jueyuan, and he didn’t care about being angry with me. He grabbed the jacket from Jueyuan’s hands and said, “What are you talking about? If you think Dingyuan has that skill, is a senior, famous fashion designer… Hey, what am I talking about? You too, think of a way.”

At this point, I looked into the distance and said, “There’s no need to think of a way. Isn’t this here?”

“What’s coming?” My words suddenly attracted everyone’s attention, and then everyone started to head towards the distance.

Isn’t there a boat floating in the mist?